Purple Hearts
by Magchange
Summary: Amidst the loss of his stepdaughter, David Madsen attempts to find justice and solve the mystery of Arcadia Bay..With the help of a certain time traveller.
1. Redeployment

It starts like any other morning.

David Madsen is making the rounds through the halls of Blackwell when the unmistakable thud of gunfire sends him surging forward.

Sends him sailing backwards.

This isn't new to him; if anything this is all too familiar.

It was supposed to be different here.

The war was supposed to stay over there.

But he supposes things aren't that clear cut anymore.

Barreling through the Hallway, he wades through the panicked throngs of students; seemingly oblivious to the chaos around him.

There are only his directives:

Seek out, identify, neutralize.

Right now, there's no Mr. Madsen: there's Sgt Madsen on his first deployment.

In his first firefight.

The battle he's fought for the last 4 years.

The one they told him he was back from.

It certainly doesn't feel like it ended as he storms the door.

And suddenly it's like bursting through a passage to the past.

The syrupy texture of blood spattered across the wall and floor,

Freshly spent gunpowder filling his nostrils.

A bewildered figure

With a dead girl at his feet.

The recognition as to the who's is immediate, the rage doubly so.

It's all combat instinct as he sweeps the punk off his feet, an arm full of letter man jacket and throat.

They tell him later his roar of anguish shook through the narrow corridors of the building.

He doesn't recall it.

All he remembers is the crumpled body and the vacant eyes.

Another casualty.

Just a child.

An innocent live he vowed to protect.

And failed.

He's wrist deep in a flowing tide of crimson.

Trying to staunch the flow of blood.

Trying to will the wound to mend.

But there's only so much paper towels can do, and he's seen that glassy look all too often.

David Madsen has been a lot of things in this life: Years ago, he'd have told you he was a soldier at war.

And that is still applicable.

It didn't end in the arid Sunni Triangle.

Not after he touched down on American Soil.

Or when he made his wedding vows.

No, the war continues at the bottom of a bottle of Jack with a loaded Beretta in the garage.

It rages on in the sleepy streets of Arcadia Bay in the form of "suspicious trash".

And it rends his heart when it takes a daughter in law he couldn't protect.

Yeah, he survived his tour and made it home.

"Won the war." They'd joke.

But cradling the broken body of his wife's child on the cold porcelain tiles of a public bathroom?

That doesn't seem like much of a victory.


	2. Receive The Mission

White noise.

Seething fury.

It starts as a sharp stabbing sensation under his ribs,

directly to his soul.

And dials down to a dull throbbing.

They have to pry him from the lifeless body,

Extricate him from the pathetic mewling of Nathan Prescott,

The whimpering form of the new student huddled next to him.

Mel? Meg?

Throw him in front of Wells.

He gives a long winded monotone lecture.

Buzzwords include "Sincere loss" and "Trying time"

But Madsen fixates on "Administrative Leave"

To say it rankles him is an understatement.

David sighs, the fifth of Jack in his hand heavy all of a sudden.

He promised he'd stop.

"A beer or two every now and then" He assured Joyce.

He'd call this an exception.

The ocean's song lulls him back to earth,

The current returns, bringing his train of thought back with it.

He should have seen this coming.

Known what Chloe had gotten herself into.

He should have been faster.

Joyce was counting on him..

Joyce...

The fury flairs up in him, the bottle is sent spiraling into the churning Pacific below.

He watches gravity do its work.

And wonders if this is the point it affects him.

That Wiley Coyote moment.

The plummet.

It feels that way.

A deep breath, soaking in the retiring sunlight,

the gentle ministrations of the ocean breeze.

He gazes across the horizon, down to the sleepy town;

the one he's tried so hard to make home.

With a family he's tried to band together.

Now forever broken, never to be set properly.

He shuts his eyes, and Joyce's eyes pierce through him, icy tendrils of despair.

Rivers threatening to cascade from beneath them.

She let's out a wail that will probably follow him to the grave.

And he holds her for it's all he's able to do anymore.

Feeling her sobs wrack through her frame.

It's deep rooted pain; sadness dealt from deep within.

There's no words he can muster to alleviate that agony.

Just let his own hurt seep down his cheeks in silence.

He can't recall how long they remain there; hours he'd imagine.

Eventually it overwhelms her, and she has cried herself into exhaustion.

All he can do is tuck her away from all of this if only for now.

Plant a gentle kiss on her brow and vow to her and himself it'll be _OK._

It's a sentiment he'd love to buy into.

This is a woman he swore he'd give everything to..

And yet..

And yet, he feels like his lack of vigilance has taken her most precious possession.

Another casualty..

He pinches the bridge of his nose, listening to the audible click of the archaic lighthouse above him.

Perpetual motion.

Suddenly, his hands are slack at his sides, and he too is moving.

Something is wrong.

Well, everything is wrong right now,

But there's the sensation that this the beginning of something.

Something...Dark.

Prescott's babbling suddenly comes to the foreground of his memory.

"Ididn'tmeanto.-Sheknew. Sheknew. I-had-had-tostopher"

At the time, he was seeing red.

But now it suddenly feels like a clue.

What actually happened here?

 _What did she know?_

He makes it over to his car,

That old familiar sensation creeping over him,

His buzz dissipating as the gears begin to turn.

The mission has been received.

And there's a lot of ground to cover.


	3. Tentative Planning

He's a lonely pair of headlights, cutting through a sleepy autumn night.

The trail back to town winds through the pinewood forests like a serpentine, and his mind twists along

with it.

The last blurry vestiges of his alcoholic bender all but burn away through the exhaust of his car.

And in it's place, is purpose.

Renewed purpose.

He needs a plan of attack: rushing into this headlong would get him precisely nowhere.

Or worse.

There needs to be intel: actionable solid intel.

So David starts his investigation in lieu of the official one.

It's just shy of 8:30 when his battered sedan pulls into the ABPD headquarters,

and already he knows the boys are pulling in overtime.

Arcadia Bay has its fair share of petty crime,

Theft.

Underage drinking.

but this..

This is the crime of the century.

A sigh, the vice like pressure of the impending hangover tightening his focus.

The soft glow of the radio clock bathes him in a neon green blanket.

A lone owl adds his vocals to the evening's soundtrack.

Burnt auburn leaves wander across the lot ahead.

For the first time since this morning, he's connected.

In tune with the world around him.

He savors the moment for just a minute longer, then piles out and enters the old brick building.

And into a veritable lion's den.

The place reeks of hair spray and ambiguous morals, bleached white with artificial light and fueled by the thirst for soundbites.

After all this time, the media has still earned nothing but contempt from him.

One look at a clearly harried Chief Callahan tells him he's not the only one.

His attempts to reason with the animals looks.. fruitless.

"...Look, I've already given you the official statement. When we have something substantial, we will come forward with it."

The Chief growls, making a beeline to the exit,a horde of reporters in tow.

He can only imagine what sort of whitewashed, generic statement he fed the media scant moments prior.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spies his informant trying his very best to bleed into the background..

and not really succeeding.

He approaches.

"Dave, I figured I'd see you eventually.." Anderson Berry leaves the statement open intentionally.

The wounds are too fresh to elaborate upon.

They both know they're bleeding freely now, and they'll continue to do so unabated for years to come.

He's whisked away from prying eyes to Berry's corner desk.

Once seated, He utters what's on the forefront of his mind.

"What happened?"

It's the million dollar question, and he feels like a fool having to ask it.

He was there for Christ's sake.

But even that's debatable.

Has he actually been _there_ for all these years?

And then Berry drops the bombshell.

"Nathan Prescott lawyered up. Like clockwork too. Some big wig shark showed as soon as we got him to an interview room."

Silence washes over the room.

Anderson leans back, attempting to play it off.

"I get it Dave, I'm a father too. If I were you, I'd want to pin the fucker to the wall, but this is the law.

We have him dead to rights. Murder weapon and all."

He wants to believe that to be true.

That the gavel of justice will bang resoundingly.

But something stirs in David Madsen;

vengeful and unyielding.

He doesn't want the kid dead to rights.

 _He just wants him dead._

"Thanks for the help." He acknowledges gruffly, shooting out of his chair.

The holding cells are a stone's throw from where they now sit.

And that's entirely too close right now.

But Berry doesn't take the hint.

"Hey man, if you need anything, don't hesitate to call."

He's being thrown the proverbial rope.

And it's obvious he'll never grasp for it.

Not until this is over.

Wordlessly, he makes his exit,

awash in a thousand implications.

This is the Prescott family:

If anyone can skirt the law and literally get away with murder, it's them.

The ride home is a blur, his mind far outpacing the physical journey.

Traffic lines and stop signs.

The gentle thrum of the engine.

The sensation of losing all sensation.

He's no fool, he's aware of his coping mechanisms.

The compartments he creates to see another day through.

The agony he's worked to cram within them.

And the knowledge his efforts are slowly killing him.

This..

This may be too much to bear.

The house is a graveyard.

Somber and stagnant.

He treads accordingly.

And stops short of the bedroom.

Wearily, he eyes the room down the hall.

Where most of his contention was drawn from.

Where the walls once vibrated with hot blooded life.

Where a woman angry at the world lay in wait

for an opportunity she would never see.

A shuddering breath, a sting at the eyes.

It was a crypt now.

A sarcophagus of fledgling dreams and misguided rage.

He wishes he could have made her see-made her understand- that they weren't so terribly different long ago.

When he was young hellion in a Midwest hick town,

Fueled by alcohol and the audacity of youth.

He had only wanted to-wanted to steer her right.

The tears seep down his cheek in rivulets before he's even aware.

Chloe..

Suddenly, all the compartments are violently torn asunder.

The emotion bubbles out of him, the sort of bawling extricated from deep within.

The door swings open abruptly, and Joyce appraises him.

Her red rimmed eyes glinting with yet more unshed tears.

He promised he'd be strong for her.

That the walls he erected could be leaned on.

But in that moment, in each others arms, they find the only pillars they can lean against are each other.

Two broken souls living among the remnants of the past.

* * *

Notes: Thank you to my reddit everyday hero, purebitterrose for pushing me along. This chapter was a struggle and a half to work through, but here it is. To all my readers, thank you for your continued support.

Much love


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